@on the cusp
Very clear signs that the economy isn't that great for a lot of people. The flooding and home destruction is going to make things so bad, in places all over the country, but definitely in East Texas. It hurts.

I hope the bench trial went well and you aren't having any itches. They SUCK!!!

chica!
I have a bench trial this morning, will hopefully have time this afternoon and for sure this evening to check out all the linked articles.
One sure way I know things are going south is how often I hear prospective clients if I will make a payment plan instead of coming up with a lump sum retainer. This is happening all the time of late. Also, often people pay with credit cards. This did not happen even 5 years ago.
With the massive floods causing people to lose their homes and all contents, stretches of days where they could not get to their place of employment, I expect things to be very economically bleak in East Texas.
Sima, it is great to hear your rash is under control. Some folks can ignore itching, but some of us get so distracted by it, we can't think straight! I am an itch crazed woman.
Thanks for the OT.

@QMS
Making a million a year. It's nuts to think people can even do that. Just nuts. And I think someone making 100k a year is doing well, heh.

Ohh well, we just have to keep on keeping on. Accept that we aren't in 'the important' class, and force changes when/if it's ever possible. After reading and studying history for so long, I'm not sure it is possible to make that change for any length of time.

Most economic numbers that are put out by the government, I can't even understand what they mean. That's probably by design too, eh?

-
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The economic indicators do not properly reflect the reality of roughly 80% of
lower income people. The stock market is primarily for wealthy investors.
Employment figures are fudged and do not consider wages and benefits.
GDP is is also cherry picked statistics, broad estimates based on comparisons
of factors unrelated to the strength of the currency.

Your mention of class benefits rings true. If the upper 20% of earners are in the
average range of a million dollars and the average income of the 80% is about
5% of that bounty, then there are vastly more poor people than wealthy.

Our household is firmly below the 50% national average. We definitely notice
price increases. Wage increases have not kept up with cost of living for at
least 50 years in my experience.

For the spinmeisters to toot Bidens horn on economic reality is just bunk.
The contortions of economic 'experts' primarily obscure the facts
on the ground.

Glad your itchies have subsided.
Thanks for the OT!

@Tall Bald and Ugly
Tornadoes and flooding and... gads. I agree, stock up when possible. Thank you for the video, is is very educational and scary!

for an itchless day!

speaking of prepping for the
weekend-absolutely grab some supplies
if you can-we have Four cme’s headed
for us(full halos on soho) video below
Is less than three and a half minutes
well worth your time
Thanks for the ot sima

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QCA3jouCKk

tried to embed, video not supported
click the link do a deep dive and
prepare to be gobsmacked

@usefewersyllables
Yep, your comment and thoughts here are so spot on. I am glad you paid off the last of your debt. I did that a while ago (had to pay down 10k in debt on a credit card, it took years), but it's been really, really hard in the last couple of years to not put debt back on credit cards and so on. I have to do it short term sometimes, pay off necessary car repairs, medical emergencies, etc. I have gotten so I just say to myself, ok, pay it off over a few months and buy nothing for those months. I also, because I'm me, make out a plan to pay off the debt and interest on it, and follow it to the letter.

I'm sorry you can't get a job where they will pay you an honest wage. Working until death, that seems to be how the richy-riches want it, for everyone else, not them, of course.

is doing exactly what it is supposed to: enrich the oligarchs, and starve everyone else.

I haven't had a raise in 8 years at my little company. I've now sent out over 700 resumes over the last 5 years or so, with only three callbacks, and no actual interviews. Nobody will hire a past-retirement-age engineer at any price, regardless of knowledge and experience. My company knows that they have me by the balls, since they know I can never afford to retire, and there's nowhere else to go. They can just laugh at me when I ask for additional compensation. And I know that I'm not alone in this dilemma.

This is what the economy is supposed to be doing. It is going exactly to plan. And yet ordinary people will still vote for the uniparty. Which means that it will not stop, nor will it get better. It just gets worse from here.

The one bright spot in those clouds is that I paid off my last outstanding debt on May 1st. So, finally and at long last, I've opted out of the interest-paying part of the economy, at least.

I can also understand why there's been an upsurge in deaths-by-despair. I'm very glad that I'm not just starting out in a career, with starry-eyed visions of a house and kids and a cat in the yard. Not gonna happen, unless one is prepared to out-sociopath the people who are already in place, pulling the ladder up after themselves. There's your economy, right there.

It may well be that the big white flash is the best currently-available outcome.
Not in a good mood this morning. Not at all.

@Pluto's Republic
Thank you for this, I learned a lot! This is so very true 'The economic imbalance occurs because insufficient taxes are collected from those who capture most of the income'. Only rebellion or the threat thereof seems to change this. Then things are good for a while until the 1% (or 5% or whatever) start pushing for lower and lower taxes on themselves and it all starts over again.

Anyway, I'm reading this over again and again, just to take in every point you've made. Thank you!!

.....it cannot produce enough income to allow all the population to achieve a modest level of self-sustaining prosperity. Throughout US history, when a very wealthy class is allowed to form (and capture much of nation's gains in wealth) a large percentage of the remaining population is forced into abject poverty. The economic imbalance occurs because insufficient taxes are collected from those who capture most of the income. As a result, society and infrastructure begin to decay. The nation begins to acquire debt to compensate for the lack of tax revenues.

The US economy is always good for those at the top — even when the newspaper say the economy is bad. For those at the bottom, the economy is always bad, even when it is good. There ia no meaningful trickle-down effect when the economy is booming because the nation's gains are captured and hoarded at the top. That has always been the accepted American way. In a real economic crisis, financial regulations may be enacted in order to force some of the captured gains to flow down to support the people's economy. But these regulations are overturned by the legislature as soon as possible.

In recent decades, legislators learned they can create the illusion of an good economy by pushing absurdly massive budgets for the US Departments of War and Empire (State, Pentagon, and Intelligence). The US War departments, in turn, funnel the money to America's largest private industries, which specialize in weapons, warfare, aggressive technologies, bioweapons, pharmaceuticals, and systems of widespread death and environmental destruction. In fact, the US is the single payer for many of these industries.

(This communist-style, government-funded, "private" industries and businesses, taking order from government authorities is the very same government-business partnership that China uses to steer domestic production to meet its own strategic needs — which the US government screeches and complains about, and imposes spurious sanctions on China that tangles the global supply chains and imports inflation on US consumers.)

This government-industry 'collusion', however, gives off signals that look like a good economy and can produce local gains in profit for corporations and investors. We know these gains that collect at the top are significant because we are now producing billionaires rather than millionaires.

The profoundly corrupt US will never be changed or reformed from inside the United States. The corruption will be with us for the rest of our lives.